


You Dodged A Bullet

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [150]
Category: DCU (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 10:41:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16084463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: The new kid, Kent, is a total weirdo. Which is why Bruce kinda likes him.





	You Dodged A Bullet

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: High school. Prompt from this [generator](http://colormayfade.tumblr.com/generator).

The new kid, Kent, is a total weirdo. Which is why Bruce kinda likes him.

Kent’s fumbly and awkward, the sort of guy who knocks over a stack of books just by looking at them. His glasses are big and black-framed and eat up most of his face and he’s kind of shy; never speaks up in class unless he’s called on but always has the right answers. Always.

That’s what first gets Bruce’s attention: how smart the kid is. That, and how spectacularly out of place. Even in the standard blue blazer and gray slacks, Kent is all farm boy. He seems ill at ease indoors, always looking around for a window, quick pane of sky, but in gym class, when they get out on the track, it almost looks like he can fly.

“Hell, Kent!” their coach Mr. White shouts one afternoon in October. “You keep showing up like that and I’m putting you on winter cross country!”

Kent just smiles, red cheeks and white teeth, his eyes a sudden, dazzling blue. “That was a fluke, Chief,” he pants. “Ate my Wheaties this morning, that’s all.”

Mr. White slaps Kent on the back, still staring at his stopwatch. “That must’ve been a hell of a breakfast. Wayne! Wayne, where the good goddamn are you?”

Bruce is perched among his brethren, hanging around the center of the track with the rest of the CC team. They’re off the hook today because they have a tournament tomorrow and Bruce is supposed to be goofing off like the rest of them, telling stories about girls that aren’t true and debating the best way to get drunk in 30 minutes, flat--the usual bullshit. He’s been playing his part, throwing in straight up lies about Selina, but he’s been watching Kent too and it takes him a second pretend to be pissed he’s being dragged away.

“I’m here, Chief,” he hollers, rolling his eyes at his crew.

“Then get the shit over _here_ , Wayne!”

Bruce pushes off and ambles across the grass, doing his best not to stare at Kent who’s turned the color of a squashed raspberry. Kent, who’s taken off his glasses--who wears glasses like when he runs? Has this guy not heard of contacts?--and looks five hundred kinds of freaked.

“Wayne, this is Kent,” White says. “He’s new.”

Kent makes a small, mortified peep.

“Yes, sir. We have some classes together.”

“Oh! Well good.” The Chief slaps Bruce on the back. “I want you to take him under your wing. I think we’re looking at the new anchor for the 500 meter relay.”

“Mr. Chief, I mean, Mr. White, I don’t really think--”

White ignores him. “He’s got the speed, but I need you to work with him on steadying it out. Pacing himself, and all that.”

Bruce gives White his teacher-tolerant smile. “I’m guessing this is not a request, sir.”

“No it damn well is not. We haven’t had a decent anchor since Nygma graduated and I’ll be damned if we’re losing that shit to Central again. Garrick over there hasn’t stopped crowing since last spring’s trials and frankly, I’m sick of it. So consider this your after-school project for the next month, Wayne. I want him ready before indoor track season begins, are we clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Wayne says, doing his best to sound bored.

“Good!” White says, clapping his hands. “Do this right, Bruce, and we might just win All-City. Hell of a way for you to wrap up your stellar career here, don’t you think?”

“Don’t worry,” Bruce deadpans once White’s wandered off to yell at the long jumpers, “he’s not always at 11. Some days he goes all the way down to 10.”

Kent looks up, looks at Bruce for the first time. “Was that a Spinal Tap reference?”

“Yeah.”

A little smile cracks through Kent’s embarrassment. “Oh. Cool. You like old stuff like that?”

Bruce has been at this dumb school for three years and counting and no one’s ever called him out on a reference like that. He’s not sure anyone in his year even knows who Spinal Tap is. Huh.

He says: “I like shit that’s funny.”

“Well,” Kent says, “yeah. Sure. That makes sense.”

“Hey, Wayne!” one his buddies shouts. “When you’re done with the nerd, you gotta hear what Kirk did with Helena!”

Bruce gives his crew the finger, much to their amusement, and turns back to Kent. “So today, after seventh hour. You got half an hour for some sprints?”

“Su-re,” Kent says, sounding seriously uncertain. “But, uh, I don’t--I don’t really do well on teams.”

He looks so damn sweet and unnerved that Bruce has this weird urge to hug him, to wrap his arms around this spindly kid and tell him it’s all gonna be ok.

“If you don’t want to join the team, that’s your prerogative,” Bruce says. “The Chief is like 85% bluster. I know he’s loud and everything, but he can be reasoned with. It’s not he has any control over your grades.”

Kent blinks. “Oh.”

“Look, the one thing you should know about this place--and I can’t believe you haven’t figured it out, frankly--is that pretty much no one is what they appear to be. White looks like a bully, but he’s really a marshmallow in bad stretchy shorts. Or, say, Mr. Palomar in the English department. Have you met him?”

“Yeah, I think so. Um, short guy with the little mustache?”

“Yeah, he teaches the third years. You dodged a bullet starting here this year. God, his classes are so fucking dull. But do you know what he does on the weekends?”

Kent is leaning closer to him, those eyes even wider. “No.”

“He’s an exotic dancer at a club out in Jersey.”

“No!”

Bruce grins. “Yes. Apparently he favors assless chaps.”

“Oh my god. And like, everyone knows this?”

“Not everyone or he wouldn’t be employed here, obviously.”

“Obviously,” Kent echoes. “Wow. Yeah.”

“Or, hmm--you see Langstrom over there?”

“Kurt? Yeah. Isn’t he one of your friends?”

“An acquaintance.”

“Ok, what about him?”

Bruce lowers his voice. “He’s been going out with Helena since middle school but she’s totally his beard.”

“His what? His--oh!” Kent looks startled. “He’s gay?”

“Loud and proud when he’s not on school grounds, but all about the pussy when he’s inside these iron gates.”

“Does she know? I mean, she seems really nice, she’s in my chem lab, I’d hate to think that she’s being _used_ \--”

Bruce laughs. “Kent, she’s got a girlfriend over at Themiscyria Prep. It’s a mutual using. Her parents are super Catholic; they’d kill her if they thought she’d so much as had a non-heteronormative thought.”

Kent blushes again, less raspberry this time and more rosé. “Oh, yeah well,” he stammers. “I get that. That’s, um. Kind of why I moved out here.”

Bruce’s eyebrow ticks up. “You moved out here because Helena is gay?”

“What? No, I”--Kent spots Bruce’s expression--“oh, you’re kidding.”

“Obviously.”

“I, um, I had a boyfriend at home. Lex. My parents found out and they kind of--lost it. They were like desperate to get us apart so they shipped me out here to live with my cousin Kara and her family.”

It’s the most words at a time Bruce’s ever heard Kent say, inside of class or out, and wow, Kent really did not waste time with the small stuff. Damn.

“I’m sorry,” Bruce says. “That’s fucked up.”

Kent looks up at him. “It is, yeah. Very much.”

The bell rings, a sharp blast over the loudspeakers, that signal 10 minutes left in the period, just long enough to shower and change before lunch, if they hurry. But for some reason, neither of them speeds away.

“Look,” Bruce says, “it’s none of my business, but you know that here, it’s ok for you to be whoever you are. You don’t have to hide it.”

Kent laughs. It’s not entirely nice. “This from the guy who just told me nobody here is what they seem.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t mean--”

“Yeah, you did.”

Bruce’s blood starts to boil. “No, Kent, I didn’t say _don’t be gay_. I said that a lot of people at this school only read what’s on the surface. I didn’t say your surface couldn’t be gay. Hell, I am, and you don’t see me getting shit for it, do you?”

“I don’t know,” Kent says, jamming his glasses back on his face. “We’re not friends.”

“So meet me here after seventh hour,” Bruce says, “and we’ll run some laps and maybe you can try to be.”

He isn’t sure where that comes from--the words or the air of semi-desperation--but they have their intended effect.

“Ok,” Kent says, “ok, fine. But my name’s Clark, by the way.”

“What?”

Suddenly, the kid is standing up straight, his shoulders back, his face firm and fierce. “Clark, that’s my first name. I know it’s what you all do here, but I don’t like being called by my last name.”

“Ok,” Bruce says, startled. “Clark it is."


End file.
